Messages - Cainad (dec.)

BUMP because I'm throwing a Moosemas party tomorrow. I had to check this thread to see what year I started doing it.. so this will be my 11th year! Which means it's my 13th moosemas party, because I think I've thrown two "Moosemas in July" parties.

I'm actually gonna have to agree with the conservative judges on this one (Note to self, you just agreed with Scalia, get a lobotomy) Free speech is free speech, if we allow restriction corporations this way, then that opens the door to restrict corporate use of other media as well.

Here's the main thing: The rugged individualist meme - alongside American libertarianism in general - is a perfect extension of logic from an incorrect assumption. Humans are by nature a cooperative species. The mistake made by the RI/Libertarian crowd is that they assume that To cooperate with the group is to surrender your identity.

And that last bit is the part we have to attack.

I strongly agree. You can see it in the endless "Why don't they just..." responses to large-scale problems (displacement, rent being too damn expensive, healthcare costs). We're conditioned, on a pretty large scale, to only think about problems in terms of individual choices, as if your or my personal buying decisions can keep rent and healthcare costs down, or save the environment by boycotting plastic straws.

I lent Cram a book a few weeks ago, Custom Reality and You, that talks about this. It's very "Online" and would be hard to read for anyone who isn't acquainted with internet weirdos. Luckily, y'all are exactly the right audience for that kind of thing.

So either the PBs dissolve into factionalism and infighting because authoritarians can't function without boots to lick (likely), or a new chud wriggles his way to the top (less likely, but not impossible).

Option one is fine, option two means potentially a MORE awful person doing the provoking and shit-stirring.

2) My best friend of ten years is pretty much in the direct path of Florence, near the coast. She has no vehicle of her own, and the family members she's staying with have decided to ride it out. I already offered to go get her yesterday (9 hour drive, one way) but no-go.

I know Bad from Worse, and I sure would have fucking preferred Bad. Bad can be badgered and cajoled and annoyed into doing at least a little bit of good if you make a big enough stink; Worse will drag the both of you down into the cesspool and declare victory.

There is just one problem: Ms. Gambichler, a 72-year-old retired court clerk, did not know she was running for anything. Nor does she wish to run. ďI have no idea what thatís about,Ē she said.She had been nominated, without her knowledge, by the boroughís Democratic Party leadership, which is struggling to maintain control after the longtime Queens party chairman, Representative Joseph Crowley, was trounced by the left-leaning insurgent Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in a June Congressional primary that sent tremors through the Democratic establishment nationwide.

Ms. Gambichler is hardly alone.

The New York Times called dozens of the Queens party machineís nominees for county committee. The candidates for 21 seats were running without their consent.

Most of these candidates did not know they were running at all until a reporter told them; two, including Ms. Gambichler, found out when they got letters from the city Board of Elections showing how their names would appear on the Sept. 13 primary ballot. Only four candidates The Times spoke to said they were running on purpose.

We told people that they NEED to get the fuck out there, get over the need for purist posturing, and get to work.

Then they did, and it turns out that the Less-Worse guys have, in fact, been working against them and hold them in full contempt. Contempt enough to stack the deck against anyone who's tired of the Less-Worse side fucking losing when it matters most. They do not, in fact, want to let the wrong sort of people in, even as they scold them for not shutting up and voting as they're told.

This is, of course, a reason to do MORE, not less. We can't afford less.

That Peter Coffin book sounds interesting. I really enjoyed the Coffin talks you linked me to. he has the right melange of commentary-about-culture while not coming off like some preachy beardo sitting on a mountain judging everybody.

Speaking of Melange, I'm finally reading Dune.

it fuckin pwns

started off slow, but I'm about halfway through and I'm loving it

Iíll lend you Coffinís book next time we see each other. The one biggest drawback I see in it is that itís Extremely Online. A lot of the references and examples pulled require a fair amount of awareness of the state of the Internet in 2017-2018. So like, PD people would get it but many others I know wouldnít.

But you also have, like, open space. Lots of Class G airspace, Iíd expect.

Between JFK, Newark, and LaGuardia, and dozens of small private airports and a scattering of military bases, there is almost no uncontrolled space in this part of the country.

But all of that is generally moot, because the FAA, so far as I can tell, has barely any resources put into governing this stuff, much less the will to enforce it. And the airports donít seem to give much of a shit as long as you arenít, ya know, in the way of the planes.

But you also have, like, open space. Lots of Class G airspace, Iíd expect.

Between JFK, Newark, and LaGuardia, and dozens of small private airports and a scattering of military bases, there is almost no uncontrolled space in this part of the country.

But all of that is generally moot, because the FAA, so far as I can tell, has barely any resources put into governing this stuff, much less the will to enforce it. And the airports donít seem to give much of a shit as long as you arenít, ya know, in the way of the planes.

FAA Part 107. I suspect it matters a lot more in parts of the country where huge chunks of the airspace is controlled. We have a shit ton of airports down in Swamp Yankee territory, as it turns out.

We honestly never checked that shit. Our drone at work is controlled by whomever wins the toss.

We also have airports. Busy ones. Sometimes it takes 10 minutes to get through security.

It's something that is technically meant to be governed by the FAA, on account of how easy it is to deliver a "present" via cheap, easily accessible drones. Hence Part 107.

The reality is that the processing for getting a controlled airspace exception takes absurdly long and is completely unusable for commercial operators. It's a legal grey area that will almost definitely need revisiting in the next few years.

At my previous employer, we just called the small airports and let their management/air traffic control know we wanted to fly a drone 100ft off the ground 5 miles away, and no one seemed to mind.

I think you're 75% correct. The missing 25% is the profit motive from privatized prisons and cheap prison labor.

Text of the 13th Amendment: "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction."

This was the amendment that prohibited the practice of slavery in the United States after the Civil War. Notice the bolded exception, and consider who the United States tends to put in prison a LOT more than everyone else.

Taken from that angle, it starts to make much more sense as to why thing are the way they are. Criminal justice in the United States is deeply warped by profit motive (and, y'know, racism). It meshes nicely with "Get Tough On Crime" and "Zero Tolerance" attitudes: indulge people's gut-level desire to punish wrongdoers and spend effort on scooping people up to exploit, rather than spending effort on improving standards of living or community health.

They told me they're looking to expand their team later this year/early next year. I happen to already possess a drone pilot license and have an educational background in spectral imaging/remote sensing, in addition to the other resume fodder I've accumulated so far. So I think I've got a strong chance.

Resume is in their hands. Now I just have to tolerate my current situation. I'll have to pay back my relocation bonus for leaving less than year after being hired, but fuck it. It'll be the best $1500 I ever spent.